The American Revolution Website Review

The History Place - American Revolution

This website was created in 1998 and features a very basic design and navigation. Overall the site itself is perfect for anyone wanting to put the events leading up to and throughout the end of the Revolutionary War in chronological order. The site features little in the way of interactive material, but makes up for it in page length. For those that love the scroll bar this website does not disappoint. The timelines are displayed on 1 page each with a lengthy scroll and no search features. This website offers up images that go along with the timelines that can be increased in size with a simple click. This may not be the most visually captivating site, but I feel it serves its purpose for those that want to understand the order of events of the Revolutionary War. In the defense of this website the American Revolution is not the only area of focus. It is also around 16 years old and starting to show its age. When compared to a few other American Revolution websites it looks as though the people who created this page did not have a very large budget to spend.

Rating - (3/5)

LIBERTY! - The American Revolution (PBS)

This website was created to support the PBS documentary LIBERTY! The Series. As one might expect PBS brings a big budget to the table and this website directly reflects it. The site itself features a slew of interactive content ranging from an news paper chronicle to a trivia game on the Revolutionary War. This website provides interesting information about the Revolutionary War while attempting to keep it fun and interactive. This suggests to me that they are trying to reach a target audience of school aged children and adolescents. A very interesting part of this website was there scholars section, http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/liberty_scholars.html, which showcased those that helped create the series. As this site was created in 2004 it really shows the advancements in the capabilities of the web when compared to the first review. I really enjoyed the interactive nature of this site and the navigation was clean and simple. The pages were kept to a decent length and information was easily accessible.

Rating - (4/5)

The American Revolution - The Glorious Cause for American Independence

The question that quickly comes to mind about this website is what doesn't it have. This is a great collection of material on the Revolutionary War including things such as: Documents, Battles, People, Events, and Timelines. The audience that this website is attempting to reach would in my opinion be more scholarly in nature. The design itself is starting to show its age having been started in the year 2001. This was a project that was created by an individual who found a love for the history of this time period. While the site itself does not boast the most attractive of designs it offers a simple and effective navigation. For those who appreciate content over design this website is for them. This was my favorite of all the American Revolution websites that I reviewed because it had a great balance of content and effective design. The section on documents is a good example of the labor of love that this site was for the creator. http://www.theamericanrevolution.org/documents.aspx